Page 64 - Armstrong Bloodline - ebook_Neat

without your prior knowledge. It was a thoroughly frightening, disorienting place and I can only imagine what
it must have been like when the bullets began to fly and smoke from musketry fire obscured things even
further…

With Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, and the final vestiges of Johnston's forces once
again in retreat, the final days of the Civil War were rapidly approaching. Although we know little of Alva's
actual involvement and activities in the battle of Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea, we do know that he
was a participant throughout this whole eventful episode. Alva's military records also show that he was in the
th
middle of action at the Battle of Bentonville, and that he was one of the ten members of the 13 captured by
the Confederacy at Mill Creek on March 19. Prisoner of War Records show him moved from Smithfield and
confined at the capital of the Confederacy (Libby Prison) in Richmond, VA on March 29, 1865. 211 & 217 This was a
horrific place with a reputation for filthy living conditions and mass deaths, so he was fortunate to have spent
only a week or two there. He was paroled at Aikens Landing, VA on April 2, 1865 and reported to College
Green Barracks, MD, on April 4. From there he was sent to Camp Chase, OH on April 6 (the three year
anniversary of his Shiloh injury), arriving there on April 10. On April 21 he received a 30-day furlough, and was
mustered out with his detachment at Detroit, MI on June 10, 1865. 218

After this, his final discharge from the Army, Alva settled in Elkhart, IN on the Michigan/Indiana border, a few
miles south of where his uncle Ransom had lived in Lawton, MI. 219 Who he knew in this town and why he
settled here is unknown, as no other members of the Armstrong family were ever known to have lived here.
While there he earned his living as a clerk in a grocery store and a billiard room, and apparently worked for a
th
time as a miller. 207 On July 12, 1868, he married 21 year-old Mary Cotton, less than one month before his 26
birthday. 129, 150 & 151 After an eventful but less than happy life, the future must have seemed bright and
promising to Alva and his young bride as they began their lives together.

On June 29, the following year, their first child, Lillian E. was born 220 and in October they moved to Corunna,
Shiawassee, MI. His father had died in that same town the previous July, and his brother Jerome was living
there at the time, running a successful harness business (contrary to the dates shown in Jerome's 1909
biography, he was still a resident of Corunna in February 1870), and he and Alva's attorney, George W.
Goodell, signed as witnesses to the sworn statement mentioned in the next paragraph. 219 His younger brother
Rolla also had connections to Corunna, as he married Eliza Maria Goodell of that city in December of that same
year (it is likely that she was related to Alva's attorney). It appears that Alva and his young family had decided
to stay here only briefly. Alva was beginning to have physical problems as a result of his Civil War wound, and it
was while here that he again applied for reinstatement of his disability pension that had been discontinued
when he reenlisted in 1863. The amount of his pension - $4.00 a month - seems ridiculously low by today's
inflated dollar values, but it must have represented a respectable figure in those days based on the volume of
forms, sworn statements, medical reports and documents that appear in Alva's pension file from 1862 through
1897 (Pension Certificate #17049.)

As with most things with the government, reinstatement of his disability pension was anything but easy. Over
the next fourteen years, Alva was required to take physicals once or twice a year in order to satisfy
Washington bureaucrats that he was still permanently disabled. As he neared death, they almost seemed to
enjoy searching for words or combinations of words that could be used to reject his requests for pension
increases. In any event, his sworn statement before the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Shiawassee County (MI) in
February 1870, explains that he left his pension certificate, discharge papers, and other documents at the
home of his Uncle Ransom when he reenlisted in 1863. He goes on to say that after his uncle died, the family
broke up and separated and that he had been unable to locate these documents. He underwent a physical
examination in Corunna the next month (March), and the doctor found that his hip was quite lame and sore

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